The New Confessions of an Economic Hit Man

The previous edition of this now-classic book revealed the existence and subversive manipulations of "economic hit men". John Perkins wrote that economic hit men (EHM) "are highly paid professionals who cheat countries around the globe out of trillions of dollars. Their tools include fraudulent financial reports, rigged elections, payoffs, extortion, sex, and murder".

Prisoners of Geography: Ten Maps That Tell You Everything You Need to Know About Global Politics

If you've ever wondered why Putin is so obsessed with Crimea, why the USA was destined to become a global superpower or why China's power base continues to expand ever outwards, the answers are all here. In 10 chapters, using essays and occasionally the personal experiences of the widely travelled author, Prisoners of Geography looks at the past, present and future to offer an essential insight into one of the major factors that determines world history.

Unique Pseudonym says:"Step back and look at politics through a new lens"

Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty

Brilliant and engagingly written,
Why Nations Fail answers the question that has stumped the experts for centuries: Why are some nations rich and others poor, divided by wealth and poverty, health and sickness, food and famine?

Doughnut Economics: Seven Ways to Think Like a 21st-Century Economist

Economics is broken. It has failed to predict, let alone prevent, financial crises that have shaken the foundations of our societies. Its outdated theories have permitted a world in which extreme poverty persists while the wealth of the super-rich grows year on year. And its blind spots have led to policies that are degrading the living world on a scale that threatens all of our futures. Can it be fixed?

WTF: What have we done? Why did it happen? How do we take back control?

There has been a people's revolt against the way the West has been run. Brexit, Trump, the recent British and French elections saw millions of people shouting that they were sick to death of things never getting better. In WTF Robert Peston gives us his highly personal account of what those who have ruled us for years got so badly wrong and what we need to do to mend the terrible fractures in our society.

Who Rules the World?: Reframings

Internationally renowned political commentator Noam Chomsky examines America's pursuit and exercise of power in a post-9/11 world. Noam Chomsky is the world's foremost intellectual activist. Over the last half century, no one has done more to question the great global powers who govern our lives, forensically scrutinizing policies and actions, calling our politicians, institutions and media to account. The culmination of years of work, Who Rules the World? is Chomsky's definitive intellectual investigation into the major issues of our times.

All Out War: The Full Story of How Brexit Sank Britain's Political Class

Based on unrivalled access to all the key politicians and their advisors - including Boris Johnson, Michael Gove, George Osborne, Nigel Farage and Dominic Cummings, the mastermind of Vote Leave - Shipman has written a political history that reads like a thriller and offers a gripping day-by-day account of what really happened behind the scenes in Downing Street, both Leave campaigns, the Labour Party, Ukip and Britain Stronger in Europe.

The Essential Chomsky

In a single volume, the seminal writings of the world's leading philosopher, linguist, and critic, published to coincide with his 80th birthday. For the past 40 years Noam Chomsky's writings on politics and language have established him as a preeminent public intellectual and as one of the most original and wide-ranging political and social critics of our time. Among the seminal figures in linguistic theory over the past century, since the 1960s Chomsky has also secured a place as perhaps the leading dissident voice in the United States.

Capitalism Without Capital: The Rise of the Intangible Economy

Early in the 21st century, a quiet revolution occurred. For the first time, the major developed economies began to invest more in intangible assets, like design, branding, R&D, or software, than in tangible assets, like machinery, buildings, and computers. For all sorts of businesses, from tech firms and pharma companies to coffee shops and gyms, the ability to deploy assets that one can neither see nor touch is increasingly the main source of long-term success.

The Panama Papers: How the World's Rich and Powerful Hide Their Money

Late one evening, investigative journalist Bastian Obermayer receives an anonymous message offering him access to secret data. Through encrypted channels he then receives documents showing a mysterious bank transfer for $500,000,000 in gold. This is just the beginning. Obermayer and fellow Süddeutsche Zeitung journalist Frederik Obermaier find themselves immersed in a secret world where complex networks of shell companies help to hide people who don't want to be found.

The Black Door: Spies, Secret Intelligence and British Prime Ministers

The Black Door explores the evolving relationship between successive British Prime Ministers and the intelligence agencies, from Asquith's Secret Service Bureau to Cameron's National Security Council. At the beginning of the 20th Century the British intelligence system was underfunded and lacked influence in government. But as the new millennium dawned, intelligence had become so integral to policy that it was used to make the case for war.

Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies

Superintelligence asks the questions: What happens when machines surpass humans in general intelligence? Will artificial agents save or destroy us? Nick Bostrom lays the foundation for understanding the future of humanity and intelligent life. The human brain has some capabilities that the brains of other animals lack. It is to these distinctive capabilities that our species owes its dominant position. If machine brains surpassed human brains in general intelligence, then this new superintelligence could become extremely powerful - possibly beyond our control.

Capital in the Twenty-First Century

What are the grand dynamics that drive the accumulation and distribution of capital? Questions about the long-term evolution of inequality, the concentration of wealth, and the prospects for economic growth lie at the heart of political economy. But satisfactory answers have been hard to find for lack of adequate data and clear guiding theories. In Capital in the Twenty-First Century, Thomas Piketty analyzes a unique collection of data from 20 countries, ranging as far back as the 18th century, to uncover key economic and social patterns.

The End of Alchemy: Money, Banking and the Future of the Global Economy

The past 20 years saw unprecedented growth and stability followed by the worst financial crisis the industrialised world has ever witnessed. In the space of little more than a year, what had been seen as the age of wisdom was viewed as the age of foolishness. Almost overnight, belief turned into incredulity. Most accounts of the recent crisis focus on the symptoms and not the underlying causes of what went wrong.

Red Notice

November 2009. Sergei Magnitsky is led to an isolation cell in a Moscow prison and beaten to death by eight police officers. His crime? To testify against the Russian Interior Ministry officials involved in a conspiracy to steal $230 million in taxes. Magnitsky’s brutal killing has remained uninvestigated to this day. Red Notice is a searing exposé of the Russian authorities responsible for the murder, slicing deep into the heart of the Kremlin to uncover its sordid truths.

Why We Sleep: The New Science of Sleep and Dreams

Why can some birds sleep with only half of their brain? What really happens during REM sleep? Why do our sleep patterns change across a lifetime? Sleep is one of the most important but least understood aspects of our life, health and longevity. Until very recently, science had no answer to the question of why we sleep or what good it serves or why we suffer such devastating health consequences when it is absent. In this book, neuroscientist and sleep expert Matthew Walker charts 20 years of cutting-edge research.

The North Water

Behold the man: Stinking, drunk, brutal and bloodthirsty, Henry Drax is a harpooner on the Volunteer, a Yorkshire whaling ship bound for the hunting waters of the Arctic Circle. Also aboard is Patrick Sumner, an ex-army surgeon with a shattered reputation, no money, and no better option than to embark as ship's medic on this ill-fated voyage.

Parliament Ltd: A journey to the dark heart of British politics

In Parliament Ltd, investigative journalist Martin Williams reveals the true extent of greed and corruption in Westminster. Containing explosive new revelations about the activities of those at the top, this is a shocking untold tale that goes to the rotten heart of British politics.

Naked Statistics: Stripping the Dread from the Data

From batting averages and political polls to game shows and medical research, the real-world application of statistics continues to grow by leaps and bounds. How can we catch schools that cheat on standardized tests? How does Netflix know which movies you'll like? What is causing the rising incidence of autism? As best-selling author Charles Wheelan shows us in Naked Statistics, the right data and a few well-chosen statistical tools can help us answer these questions and more.

The War of the World: History's Age of Hatred

The world at the beginning of the 20th century seemed for most of its inhabitants stable and relatively benign. Globalising, booming economies married to technological breakthroughs seemed to promise a better world for most people. Instead the 20th century proved to be overwhelmingly the most violent, frightening and brutalised in history, with fanatical, often genocidal warfare engulfing most societies between the outbreak of the First World War and the end of the Cold War. What went wrong?

Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945

Random House presents the audiobook edition of Postwar by Tony Judt, read by Ralph Cosham. Tracing the story of postwar Europe and its changing role in the world, Judt's magnificent history of the continent of our times investigates the political, social and cultural history of Europe from the wreckage of postwar Europe to the expansion of the EU into the former Soviet empire. Judt's stress is on the continent as a whole, from Greece to Norway, from Portugal to Russia.

Worth Dying For: The Power and Politics of Flags

When you see your nation's flag fluttering in the breeze, what do you feel? For thousands of years flags have represented our hopes and dreams. We wave them. Burn them. March under their colours. And still, in the 21st century, we die for them. Flags fly at the UN, on the Arab street, from front porches in Texas. They represent the politics of high power as well as the politics of the mob.

Publisher's Summary

Natural resources empower the world's most coercive men. Autocrats like Putin and the Saudis spend oil money on weapons and repression. ISIS and Congo's militias spend resource money on atrocities and ammunition. For decades resource-fueled authoritarians and extremists have forced endless crises on the West - and the ultimate source of their resource money is us, paying at the gas station and the mall.

In this sweeping new book, one of today's leading political philosophers, Leif Wenar, goes behind the headlines in search of the hidden global rule that thwarts democracy and development - and that puts shoppers into business with some of today's most dangerous men. Listeners discover a rule that once licensed the slave trade and apartheid and genocide, a rule whose abolition has marked some of humanity's greatest triumphs - yet a rule that still enflames tyranny and war and terrorism through today's multitrillion-dollar resource trade. Blood Oil shows how the West can now lead a peaceful revolution by ending its dependence on authoritarian oil and by getting shoppers out of business with the men of blood. The book describes practical strategies for upgrading world trade: for choosing new rules that will make us more secure at home, more trusted abroad, and better able to solve pressing global problems like climate change. This book shows citizens, consumers, and leaders how we can act together today to create a more united human future.

An excellent, absorbing and well written book. Wenar does a very good job of threading together the multiple aspects of what is a complex issue. Exploring history, religion, culture, power and politics to frame the issues, the author provides a refreshingly honest view of our dependence upon oil, the conflicting values of western societies, and makes some practical suggestions for improving the world.

when buying stolen resources from authoritarian rulers; how & why we must stop. A must Read!

4 of 5 people found this review helpful

MD

New York, New York

17/05/16

Overall

Performance

Story

"Caveat: Human beings -- Totally untrustworthy"

This book is a thorough primer on world affairs. It clarified a lot of things for me with brilliant examples and tidbits, particularly about our relationship with the Saudi Kingdom and other such states.

However, in my jaded view, conflict and war is part of our DNA like water and salt. We humans will never change and will always find something to quarrel about. The book demonstrates this human pitfall in its discussions regarding alternative solutions. ... Better technology and upheaval because of new technology is most often the driver of social progress and setbacks. For example the abolition of slavery and the American Civil War was an industrial vs agrarian conflict. (And it can be argued that the freeing of the slaves was Lincoln's version of Truman dropping the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.) In the case that the author cited, the abolition of the slave trade by England, it is noted that the TRADE of slaves was abolished but NOT SLAVERY itself. For tactical reasons, the abolitionist in England believed that slavery itself would wither away on its own, which was true enough. Industrialization and the replacement of brute manpower with machine power, however, was the ultimate driver (i.e., better profits). Likewise, alternative fuels or even lifestyles might ultimately cure our dependency on oil; provided, the powers that be allows us to go forward with these alternative lifestyles. Yes, allow --the forces of commercialism and the constant brainwashing are difficult to overcome even by the fiercest of romantics. ... Enters shale oil --and its taxing horrors on the eco-systems of the states involved, Pennsylvania, upstate New York and other bucolic scenes throughout the United States and Canada and the Americas-- to carry the day until science, our hero, sneaks one in and breaks the spell. ...

6 of 8 people found this review helpful

S. Yates

DC

30/04/17

Overall

Performance

Story

"Thought-provoking, but should include endnotes"

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

I would recommend the book, but I truly believe it should have included endnotes. Books like these, where many sources are used, loose something without this additional information. I realize it can slow the speed of the reader, but I think they should just say "endnote 1", "endnote 2", etc., and then include a pdf with the endnotes.

Any additional comments?

3.5 stars. This is a difficult book to review or sum up. It looks at the various research-rich countries in the world where the resource wealth has abetted sub-par, violent, and/or non-existent government. It is part history, part economics lesson, part psychology, part political science primer, and part philosophy. On the pro side, the author's view is clearly rooted in an ethical hope for and vision of the world; sometimes it seems a bit Pollyanna-ish, but the sentiment is welcome where many find only cynicism. The author is sympathetic to the plight of those who are resource cursed (the term of art used to describe the majority of resource-rich countries for whom the bounty ended up being a bane), and lays all the necessary groundwork to explain how resource-rich countries can end up with impoverished people and illiberal policies. The author also discusses the oil trade at length (with additional attention given to other extractive resources, from metals to gems), which can be eye-opening to those who never really think about the intricacies of this economy. The author also provides an impressive (if somewhat fulsome) account of political power, laying groundwork for the reader to understand how the relationship between leaders and the populace have morphed over time, the pitfalls in these relationships, and what aspects allowed for governments structured on leaders serving the people rather than people serving the leaders. This all leads up to some grand policy suggestions (on par with the kind of broad policies necessary to oppose the international slave trade). These suggestions, though daunting and unlikely to come about soon, are not entirely unworkable. They are creative and interesting. Even if the reader thinks they have a long shot at being enacted in the near future, the still offer much to ponder and many tools that could be deployed against unjust states who live off of their resources at the expense of their people.

The book also has some shortcomings. The tone sometimes feels a bit too philosophical and it occasionally plays a little loosely with facts. (Glaringly, in the introduction, the author states that the Great Wall of China and an oil platform off of Norway can be seen from the moon -- but this is just plain wrong. The Great Wall can only occasionally be seen from low earth orbit, and certainly not from the moon. Whether inadvertent or not, errors like these, which should be easily caught with the most rudimentary fact checking, makes one wonder what else might be exaggerated, obscured, or just plain false.) That said, the book is sufficiently end-noted to allow a reader to check sources. The extensive space used discussing political history and economics might turn off a reader who expected a more concise book focused on oil alone (and modern oil at that). In the end, these aspects of the book did not diminish the scope and ethical heart of the whole. I felt it was worth my time and enlightening in a number of ways.

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

TIMOTHY C VONHAHN

31/05/16

Overall

Performance

Story

"Thought Provoking"

I would recommend this book to anyone who has an interest in global justice. I think I'll be buying it for some people...

5 of 8 people found this review helpful

Amazon Customer

Atlanta

30/06/17

Overall

Performance

Story

"Informative, repetitive"

The book had the longest intro ever. Once through the 4 hours of introduction, the book moved along repeating itself regularly and quickly lost my intetest. I powered through anyway, fast forwarding to the best of my ability when recovering the same topic. Again and again.

0 of 0 people found this review helpful

Andrew

FAIR OAKS, CA, United States

20/05/17

Overall

Performance

Story

"Excellent"

This is a great philosophical exploration of one of the greatest problems of our time, resource exploitation.

0 of 0 people found this review helpful

Magnus

Arendal, Norway Norway

21/03/17

Overall

Performance

Story

"A solution to intransigence in human rights"

This is a thorough philosophical road map for native ownership of resources, which is argued to be the cause of much remaining global strife. Support the roadmap, let's see just democracy materialise!

0 of 0 people found this review helpful

Gunnar Nelson

17/02/17

Overall

Performance

Story

"blood oil: (a virtue of unification)"

Great book overall, opened my eyes up to a whole new world. performance was great overall. the author constructed a definitive argument about the corruption within the global supply chain. the book oothes with prothos to convince thr reader about the epidemic in the global supply chain; however, I felt there wasn't so much devotion to the political and economic ties to how to recomprimise corruption in the supply chain. I believe to make his argument more definitive would be to tie in more the corruption. of slavery and common goods people traded such as sugar cane, spices, coffee, and cotton in the 1600-1800s. he does make a more definitive argument for unification of man globally, but doesn't dive into the political and economic stricture. Still good though!

0 of 0 people found this review helpful

Tully Smith

14/02/17

Overall

Performance

Story

"Very good book, can be depressing at times though"

This is a very insightful book that sheds light on how backwards the whole oil industry is. I had to listen to the book in chucks, as it was a little to "real" to listen to for long durations. Great book over all.

0 of 0 people found this review helpful

Amazon Customer

26/01/17

Overall

Performance

Story

"Interesting Concepts"

The author makes good points about resource ownership and the issues that come along with being involved in their purchase. The principle of might vs. right was well supported. On a personal level, I don't know how I feel about the last few chapters that delve into counter-power. I think these trends swing back and forth and it was a bit on the optimistic and unrealistic side. The end of the book was weird and sounded like a Miss America contestants answer about world peace. Overall, not too bad. If you are into social justice, global socialism, et cetera, this is your book and how to guide.

0 of 0 people found this review helpful

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